Supporting ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Lessons learned from developing countries

The document outlines five key conclusions for developing countries creating INDCs: treating them as political statements, establishing clear structures, leveraging existing policies, conducting broad consultations, and planning for implementation. It emphasizes the need to balance ambition with feasibility, often through a combination of unilateral and conditional contributions, while aligning climate actions with national development priorities and Sustainable Development Goals.

• Developing countries are often balancing ambition and feasibility by structuring their INDCs with two distinct levels of action: unilateral outcomes that can be delivered with existing resources, and more ambitious conditional contributions that require external financial or technical support.
• The development of an INDC is primarily a political process rather than a purely technical exercise; success requires an inclusive political narrative that aligns climate actions with national interests and secures high-level government approval.
• Effective INDC preparation involves building on existing national climate strategies and development plans to avoid duplicating work, while using new analysis specifically to fill critical knowledge gaps and update old data.
• Broad-based consultation across government ministries, the private sector, and civil society is essential to ensure that proposed measures are feasible and to build the necessary buy-in for later implementation.
• To attract international donor support, countries should include specific, well-costed requests for technology and finance, and establish monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems to ensure accountability and track effectiveness.

APA

Dodwell, C., Holdaway, E., Sura, K., & Picot, H. (2015). Supporting ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Lessons learned from developing countries. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CDKN_INDCS_Working_Paper_final_web3.pdf

Chicago

Dodwell, Chris, Emelia Holdaway, Kiran Sura, and Helen Picot. Supporting ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Lessons learned from developing countries. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2015. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CDKN_INDCS_Working_Paper_final_web3.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dodwell |first1=Chris |last2=Holdaway |first2=Emelia |last3=Sura |first3=Kiran |last4=Picot |first4=Helen |title=Supporting ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Lessons learned from developing countries |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=July 2015 |url=http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CDKN_INDCS_Working_Paper_final_web3.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dodwell2015supporting, author = {Dodwell, Chris and Holdaway, Emelia and Sura, Kiran and Picot, Helen}, title = {{Supporting ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Lessons learned from developing countries}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2015}, month = jul, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CDKN_INDCS_Working_Paper_final_web3.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }